We all learn from our mistakes, right? I’m sure a famous old sage once said, “He who makes no mistakes makes nothing at all.” And yes, in my early years as a quiz compiler and host, I foolishly relied on a single source for confirmation of facts and it failed me a couple of times. And boy oh boy, you soon learn the hard way from the deadly serious quiz teams!

But sadly, there are some quiz hosts out there whose idea of research begins and ends with copy and paste! They spot a swathe of quiz questions online and simply use them with no checking or validation at all. Surely the funniest ones though are the ambiguous questions…the ones where you are pretty sure there’s no definitive answer, but the amateur host still insists their answer is correct….such as; Which creature kills the most humans each year? Well, there’s an argument for both the humble mosquito and mankind itself. And strictly speaking, the mosquito causes minuscule harm to human life on its own, but the diseases it carries….whilst only homicide figures are counted in the man v man total, ignoring war and terrorism. So you can see why I spend long geeky hours making sure (as best as I can) that every question is not only interesting, but correct!

Have a look at some of the common ‘non-facts’ often used in quizzes around the country:

  • The Great Wall Of China is the only man-made structure visible from space – Nope. Unless you’re viewing through a magnification device, at which point lots of man-made things will appear visible!
  • A Polar Bear’s fur is white (or yellow) – Nope again. Their fur is actually translucent, the white is the light reflecting back/passing through. Their skin is actually black.
  • Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the World – Wrong! It is the highest peak on the planet (above sea level), but Mauna Kea is definitely taller when measured from base to tip.
  • Bulls are enraged by the colour red – highly unlikely, as they can only see blues and yellow. It’s the annoying waving of the cape that pisses them off!
  • Dropping a penny from the top of the Empire State Building will kill somebody at the bottom – Well, first of all you’ve gotta hit someone and those odds are pretty high. Secondly, with the penny weighing around 1 or 2 grams, its terminal velocity as it spins and falls doesn’t increase nearly as much as you’d think, so an annoying bump on the head is the most you can wish for.
  • Nails and hair continue to grow after you die – Or….the grown-up explanation is that skin recedes thus giving the appearance of growth.
  • The forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was an apple – Actually, in the Book of Genesis, there’s no mention of what type of fruit it was at all. My guess is a fig, as they wore fig leaves to cover their modesty…if you believe that kind of thing.

And finally…..here’s a photo of my cat moments before I began this blog and moments after exploring a very dusty shed.